Elms Progressive Media

And if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became the truth. – George Orwell, 1984 (published in 1949) House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was in town yesterday (specifically, at Stanford’s Hoover Institute where he could surround himself with sympathetic Republicans) to tell this whopper: “Cutting the federal deficit will create jobs.” It’s not true. Cutting the deficit will create fewer jobs. Less government spending reduces overall demand. This is particularly worrisome when, as now, consumers and businesses are still holding back. Fewer government workers have paychecks to buy stuff from other Americans, some of whom in turn will lose their jobs without enough customers. Republicans lie about everything

FreedomWorks, a right-wing group bankrolling the Tea Party , has a new advertisement it is planning to run in Ohio supporting Gov. John Kasich’s union-busting efforts. The advertisement tries to paint union protesters in Ohio as violent thugs. One problem: the ad uses footage from an old union protest in California. How do we know? This is the same footage from California, which features palm trees, that was used by Bill O’Reilly just days ago. He used it to argue that the protesters in Wisconsin were violent thugs. Here’s the video evidence produced by TP’s Jeff Spross: Freedom Works Doen't Have Their Facts Rights

ThinkProgress » Fox News Sees ‘Violent’ ‘Union Thugs’ Attacking State Senator, But Senator Saw ‘A Lot Of Courteous People’ "Fox has been breathlessly hyping a video from Madison, WI supposedly showing “union thugs” attacking GOP state Sen. Glenn Grothman outside the Statehouse. In the video, protesters yell “shame” at Grothman as he enters the building, aided by Democratic State Rep. Brett Hulsey, who escorts Grothman through the crowd and reminds the protesters to be respectful of political opponents. The video is dramatic, but to Fox News, it’s downright terrifying. Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade saw a “violent” “angry mob,” while fellow Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy found the footage “absolutely scary.” Fox host Sean Hannity said while watching the “frightening” video that he was “concerned for this guy’s safety.” And contributor Michelle Malkin agreed, viewing the video as proof that “the rule of law has been supplanted by the rule of the mob.” But one key player ...

ThinkProgress » ExxonMobil paid no federal income tax in 2009. (Updated) "Last week, Forbes magazine published what the top U.S. corporations paid in taxes last year. “Most egregious,” Forbes notes, is General Electric, which “generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.” Big Oil giant Exxon Mobil, which last year reported a record $45.2 billion profit, paid the most taxes of any corporation, but none of it went to the IRS: - Sent using Google Toolbar"

ThinkProgress » Will The Sunday Shows Ignore Labor For The Second Week In A Row? "For the last two weeks, working people have joined with students and sympathetic lawmakers as part of a Main Street Movement to protest efforts in multiple states to strip workers of their collective bargaining rights. While the protests against Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) have garnered the most attention, protests have also taken place in Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Washington, Montana, and Idaho. The protests have caused Republican governors in multiple states to back down from their anti-worker stances. - Sent using Google Toolbar"

ThinkProgress » Priorities? GOP Governors Shift Burden To Poor, Middle Class To Pay For Tax Breaks For Rich, Corporations "State budgets across the country are in disarray as a weak economy, the end of tens of billions in Recovery Act funds, and a GOP-led House that is pushing for deep cuts to many programs that benefit state and local governments set the stage for massive in shortfalls over the next two years. Instead of making the tough choices necessary to help their states weather the current crisis with some semblance of the social safety net and basic government services intact, Republican governors are instead using it as an opportunity to advance several longtime GOP projects: union busting, draconian cuts to social programs, and massive corporate tax breaks. These misplaced priorities mean that the poor and middle class will shoulder the burden of fiscal austerity, even as the rich and corporations are asked to contribute even less. Here’s a detailed look at how the GOP’...

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin is not an honest broker; what happened to the 200 million dollar surplus that he inherited when he took the job as Governor. He immediatel ­y gave tax breaks to his RICH FRIENDS who helped get elected of nearly 400 million in tax breaks. This is about union busting, to strip workers of political power, and to have a one party system. The Republican ­s want to be in charge of the political process. They want to re-write history, to change all the laws, and to call all the shots. They want to create elite rule system giving the Super Rich all the political might. They want to privatize government services and give the money to Wall Street. Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

(Written by an American expat living in the European Union).It wasn't until I left America that I started to realize how badly the American plutocrat owned media lies to the American people through its disinformation campaign.Well today for a span of at least this one Daily Kos diary, you will get to see what the American plutocrat owned media never wants you to see, and that is how Europe in particular and the world in general has come to see America as a country in decline, whose people are so badly misinformed by the media, they actually don't realize that America is the only major industrialized nation in the world that by right of law does not offer universal medical access, paid sick leave, paid maternity leave and paid annual leave. It just seems almost impossible to get that word out to the American people. Even diaries on that subject at the Kos top out at just over 2,000 views. Let's please remember the purpose of the plutocrat owned commercial media isn't so ...

Unless Congress acts to extend programs for those who have exhausted regular state unemployment benefits, millions of jobless workers may soon be phased out of emergency unemployment benefits [1].Unemployment benefits from states typically last for 26 weeks, but since 2008, Congress has on four occasions [2] passed emergency provisions that use federal funds to extend benefits for jobless workers by up to 73 weeks [3], depending on the state’s laws and unemployment rate. These benefits are set to expire tomorrow unless lawmakers intervene. With Federal Benefits Set to Expire, Unemployed Workers Face Shrinking Safety Net - ProPublica Blogged with the Flock Browser

Does Obama think that freezing wages for federal employees will improve the economy which is in a depression ­? If anything it will prolong the pain and suffering for workers and small business. Why didn't Obama go after Wall Street, The Health Industry, and the Pharmaceut ­ical Companies who are robbing us all. Because they paid him off. Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

By a vote of 348-79, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the "Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act" on Wednesday afternoon, a bill that threatens trade sanctions against China if the country does not sharply revalue its currency upward. But here's something that Republicans and Democrats itching to start slapping tariffs on Chinese imports might want to consider: Exports of made-in-the-USA cars to China are suddenly booming. Congress to China: Let the trade wars begin! - How the World Works - Salon.com Blogged with the Flock Browser

For the past 50 years, American manufacturing has dominated the globe. It turned the tide in World War ii, and hastened the defeat of Nazi Germany; it subsequently helped rebuild Europe and Japan; and it enabled the United States to outlast the Soviet empire in a Cold War. Concurrently, it met all the material needs of the American people. The Death of American Manufacturing | theTrumpet.com by the Philadelphia Church of God Blogged with the Flock Browser

The United Steelworkers recently filed a petition with the U.S. Trade Representative, accusing China of illegally stimulating and protecting its producers of green technology exports, ranging from wind and solar energy products to advanced batteries and energy-efficient vehicles. After the USTR opened an investigation, EPI International Economist Robert Scott submitted the attached comments outlining how Chinese trade practices "pose a direct threat to the recovery of U.S. manufacturing." Comments on the USTR investigation of China’s subsidies to green industries Blogged with the Flock Browser

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1993, the rise in the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico through 2002 has caused the displacement of production that supported 879,280 U.S. jobs. Most of those lost jobs were high-wage positions in manufacturing industries. The loss of these jobs is just the most visible tip of NAFTA's impact on the U.S. economy. In fact, NAFTA has also contributed to rising income inequality, suppressed real wages for production workers, weakened workers' collective bargaining powers and ability to organize unions, and reduced fringe benefits.NAFTA is a free trade and investment agreement that provided investors with a unique set of guarantees designed to stimulate foreign direct investment and the movement of factories within the hemisphere, especially from the United States to Canada and Mexico. Furthermore, no protections were contained in the core of the agreement to maintain labor or environmental standards. As a r...

Thirty years of Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush economic policies. Has put us in this economic ditch “America is looking like a third world country.” By stripping workers of their civil rights, breaking worker unions, deregulation, tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. The conspiracy of the SUPER RICH and Multinational Corporations to rob workers of their dignity and their financial independence. To paralyze them emotionally and financially. To take away their political power. To prevent them from mobility. To take away their voice. To make them invisible. By stealing their homes, by stealing money from their bank accounts, and by getting them deeply in financial debt. As a result, states have lost tax revenues. States have had to raise sales taxes, cut services, and layoff workers. This has affected local communities; it has affected small business because they rely on the locals to spend money for their survival, and community based organizations which all rely on states f...

Dane Edward Rossman, 23, and Bryan Wayne Reavely, 24, were arrested for throwing rocks at police officers at the National Socialist Movement march, according to Sgt. Tommy Thompson with the Phoenix Police Department. Neo-Nazi march interrupted by riot in downtown Phoenix Blogged with the Flock Browser

Seven companies involved in the oil industry -- including Transocean (RIG), the company that owned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded and leaked oil into the Gulf of Mexico for three months earlier this year -- will pay the U.S. government a total of $236.5 million to settle charges that they bribed overseas officials to lower customs duties, extend drilling contacts and streamline permitting for oil-drilling rigs, among other things. Shell, Panalpina, Five Other Companies Fined $236.5 Million for Alleged Bribes - DailyFinance Blogged with the Flock Browser

If you look at the polls, Charlie Crist's U.S. Senate campaign is poised for a beating Tuesday. If you look at Crist campaigning across Florida in recent days, he's as upbeat as any frontrunner. Shrugging at Senate race polls, Crist remains upbeat Blogged with the Flock Browser

Liberals are a useless lot. They talk about peace and do nothing to challenge our permanent war economy. They claim to support the working class, and vote for candidates that glibly defend the North American Free Trade Agreement. They insist they believe in welfare, the right to organize, universal health care and a host of other socially progressive causes, and will not risk stepping out of the mainstream to fight for them. The only talent they seem to possess is the ability to write abject, cloying letters to Barack Obama—as if he reads them—asking the president to come back to his “true” self. This sterile moral posturing, which is not only useless but humiliating, has made America’s liberal class an object of public derision. Liberals Are Useless | CommonDreams.org Blogged with the Flock Browser

This month, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) began airing a race-baiting anti-immigrant campaign ad that the local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce found to be “totally abhorrent and shocking.” The ad targets the immigration stance of Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA), Vitter’s opponent: the narrator says “Thanks to him, we may as well put out a welcome sign for illegal aliens,” as footage of dirty, goofy-looking Latino men slipping through a hole in a fence displaying a neon welcome sign runs across the screen. The men step into a limo with a giant government check they defiantly hang out the window as they zoom away. “I’m going to use the ‘R’ word and say racist,” said the spokeswoman for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “We are saying you owe us an apology, we are offended, we expect an immediate apology and we expect this ad to be yanked from the airwaves immediately,” she continued. Cornyn Refuses To Denounce Vitter’s Race-Baiting Anti-Immigrant Campaign Ad Blogged with the Flock Browser